Catching Particle Fever

IN DEEP Interspersed with the plot of Particle Fever are artful explanatory animations and commentary highlighting that the Higgs boson is a stepping stone toward a deeper understanding of the universe.

Courtesy of PF Productions

There’s a brilliant dreamlike sequence about halfway through the documentary Particle Fever, when theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed enters his building at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J., looking troubled. Cartoon equations and figures swirl around his head. As he walks upstairs to his office and starts to work, the building’s windows fall away. Shortly thereafter, the whole world disintegrates into a mess of alternate universes, almost none of which could support life. Could our existence be an accident, the film asks, and our attempts to understand nature a folly?

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